(8.5) Thinking Plague - Decline And Fall (2012)

If I were to judge this album based on it's cover and both the name of the band and the album it would be fair to say that it looks and sounds like "another generic hardcore/metal band", but it's not!. There's one simple way to describe what this album is like: syncopated, atonal jazz-fusion... is that enough? If not then let me get a little more specific, it's like a mix of King Crimson's most "recent" syncopated instrumentals and their jazz fusion era, plus a stripped down, less chaotic Kayo Dot... with female vocals. If you don't have a general idea of what this bands sounds like yet then you're probably reading the wrong blog...
That's pretty much how the album sounds like, but what makes it even more unique is it's vocals, to begin with, it's not everyday that you find a jazz fusion band with a female vocalist, and second, the vocals are as atonal as the sax or the guitar playing in the background, as if they improvised/wrote another instrumental track and used it as a vocal melody.

Now go give the album a listen!.

http://www.generalrubric.com/thinkingplague/main.html

(9/10) Mastodon - The Hunter (2011)

After the epic journey that was Crack The Skye it seems Mastodon decided to go in the opposite direction, leaving the long progressive-rock/metal compositions of their previous effort and writing a more straightforward yet extremely technical and agressive record (which doesn't mean there isn't space for some relaxed moments) that shows a side Mastodon has never explored before, more focused in the "stoner" side of the band which is probably the best thing about this album (for some moments I even thought I was listening to Queens Of The Stone Age), songs like Stargasm (which by the way, reminds me of Sleeping Giant a little) and The Sparrow bring lots of melancholic, distorted images to my mind. 2011 was a special year, with RHCP releasing their first album since John Frusciante left the band, Incubus going into a completely new direction, Pez moving away from their straight-forward punk songs into full blast hard rock, Primus coming back from sleep and The Dear Hunter releasing one of the most ambitious projects I've seen in the last 5 years, as if all my favourite bands conspired to give me some nice surprises last year... it seems that Mastodon didn't want to be less than them.

01. Black Tongue (3:27) 
02. Curl Of The Burl (3:40) 
03. Blasteroid (2:36) 
04. Stargasm (4:40) 
05. Octopus Has No Friends (3:49) 
06. All The Heavy Lifting (4:31) 
07. The Hunter (5:18) 
08. Dry Bone Valley (4:00) 
09. Thickening (4:31) 
10. Creature Lives (4:41) 
11. Spectrelight (3:10) 
12. Bedazzled Fingernails (3:08) 
13. The Sparrow (5:31)

http://www.mastodonrocks.com/news

(8/10) Soundgarden - Live on I-5 (2011)

Reviewing live albums can be a bit difficult sometimes, generally I try not to focus on the songs itself but on the performance quality, lenght, tracklist and improvisation/extras. In this case Live on I-5 is a pretty decent live album that in my opinion is long enough but lacks variety. Of course some people may have different preferences about the tracklist, I feel most of Soundgarden's casual audience sticks to Superunknown, this may be the reason I'm not completely satisfied with it since I've heard most of their discography and I like their punk roots as much as I liked Down On The Upside which in my opinion is very underrated when compared to Superunknown. The sound quality is good enough for me, there's little to no improvisation involved (specially not jams, maybe one or two, a short jam in Spoonman for example) and the tracklist is 60% Superunknown/Down On The Upside, with the former being the protagonist (they obviously couldn't let out hits like Black Hole Sun or Fell on Black Days).

A song that is sadly missing from the album (unless you preordered it):

Regular version tracklist:

1. "Spoonman"
2. "Searching with My Good Eye Closed"
3. "Let Me Drown"
4. "Head Down"
5. "Outshined"
6. "Rusty Cage"
7. "Burden in My Hand"
8. "Helter Skelter"
9. "Boot Camp"
10. "Nothing to Say"
11. "Slaves and Bulldozers"
12. "Dusty"
13. "Fell on Black Days"
14. "Search and Destroy"
15. "Ty Cobb"
16. "Black Hole Sun"  
17. "Jesus Christ Pose" 

Matt Cameron – drums, percussion
Chris Cornell – vocals, rhythm guitar
Ben Shepherd – bass guitar
Kim Thayil – lead guitar

http://www.soundgardenworld.com/

(8.5/10) Leprous - Bilateral (2011)

I found about Leprous via Google Alerts because I kept getting news articles mentioning Jeff Jordan as the artist behind the album's cover, I decided to download some of their albums but I didn't enjoy them very much so I ended up deleting them, nevertheless when this album dropped I felt the need to check it out and I felt very pleased with the result. Bilateral is like mixing modern prog metal like Dream Theater (which I don't like very much honestly) and Opeth with experimental bands like Porcupine Tree and The Mars Volta, I dare to say that in some spots I even thought I was listening to Muse in their less poppy era. The growling is kept to a minimum during the album which is something that in excess ends up boring me, so for those who were getting worried as soon as I said "prog metal", go ahead and give the album a try. WARNING: weird video below.

1. "Bilateral" (4:00)
2. "Forced Entry" (10:20)
3. "Restless" (3:30)
4. "Thorn" (5:47)
5. "Mb. Indifferentia" (6:33)
6. "Waste of Air" (5:32)
7. "Mediocrity Wins" (6:07)
8. "Cryptogenic Desires" (2:45)
9. "Acquired Taste" (5:13)
10. "Painful Detour" (8:18)

Einar Solberg - Synth, Vocals

Tor Oddmund Suhrke - Guitar, Vocals

Øystein Landsverk - Guitar, Backing Vocals

Rein Blomquist - Bass

Tobias Ørnes Andersen - Drums

http://www.leprous.net/

(9/10) Incubus - If Not Now, When? (2011)

This may be the most polarizing Incubus album to date, during their almost 20 years of career they've gone from funk metal to alternative rock, and while they've always had some catchy tunes and a certain commercial format to their songwriting this is the first Incubus album I wouldn't consider a rock album... to be completely honest I didn't like this at all when I first listened to it, but once you've gone through it a few times you begin to notice that the basics of every Incubus song are there, specially on Mike Einziger's guitar parts. The rest is a laid back version of what they've done before, after listening to some 80's classics accidentally at one of my relative's 50th birthday I realized how much this album sounded like that, specially the title track. About the lyrics I think Brandon Boyd's words are enough: "it's about love and finding art and success in love. I never know what I'm going to be writing about until I'm actually writing about it. It's what's relevant in my heart and mind. There's definitely a romantic undertone and overtone.". There's still room for experimentation (the dark In The Company Of Wolves) and classical Incubus freaky songs like Switchblade, that is to If Not Now, When? what Priceless was to A Crow Left Of The Murder.

 1. If Not Now, When
2. Promises, Promises
3. Friends and Lovers
4. Thieves
5. Isadore
6. The Original
7. Defiance
8. In the Company of Wolves
9. Switchblade
10. Adolescents
11. Tomorrow's Food 

http://www.enjoyincubus.com/

Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me (lyrics video)

http://www.dragcity.com/artists/joanna-newsom

(9/10) Scale The Summit - The Collective

No soy muy fan de este tipo de música pero este disco me conquistó totalmente, porque no se pasa de virtuoso ni suena repetitivo. Algunos diran que son una banda de metal instrumental, pero para mi van mucho mas allá que solo metal. Lo poco pero interesante que se sobre esta banda es que sus dos guitarristas se recibieron en Berklee y que ambos son luthiers. Otro dato interesante es que si alguien quiere animársele a alguna de sus canciones ellos venden libros de partituras y tablaturas en su sitio. En estos momentos estan salieron de gira como headliners por primera vez, y aparéntemente están trabajando en su próximo disco (prometen tocar un tema nuevo en los shows). Es un disco para escuchar con paciencia y esperar a que se asiente...

Guitar – Chris Letchford
Guitar – Travis Levrier
Bass – Jordan Eberhardt
Drums – Pat Skeffington

 

 1. "Colossal"
2. "Whales"
3. "Emersion"
4. "The Levitated"
5. "Secret Earth"
6. "Gallows"
7. "Origin of Species"
8. "Alpenglow"
9. "Black Hills"
10. "Balkan"
11. "Drifting Figures"

http://www.scalethesummit.com/band/